The present invention relates to the field of infrared cameras. More particularly, this invention relates to infrared cameras enabling an operator to capture a thermal image of an asset and the scene or area where the asset is located and then associate it with any auxiliary information relating to the asset or scene.
Thermal imaging cameras have long been used in many settings to measure temperature profiles and analyze thermal variations and differences of one or more assets in a scene such as an electric motor in an area of a manufacturing plant. To that end, such profiles can be used in comparing the different temperatures of the assets at any given time, or conversely, can be used in comparing these temperatures or thermal variations and differences over a period of time. For example, infrared cameras are frequently used in industrial applications as part of preventative maintenance programs and for building sciences and diagnostics inspections. These types of programs often typically rely on periodic inspections of the assets of a plant, facility, or structure to discover likely failures before they occur or monitor and document ongoing performance. For example, in an industrial setting, plant personnel often develop survey routes in order to routinely gather temperature data on the identified equipment. As is known, similar examples exist in other applications for building sciences as well.
In an industrial setting example, after collecting a thermal baseline image for each piece of equipment along a route, a person (such as a thermographer, an inspector, a building performance professional, an electrician, a technician, etc.) can then identify changes in thermal characteristics over the course of several inspections by comparing later thermal images of the equipment with the baseline image or other prior images. Changes in thermal characteristics can in some cases indicate the imminent failure of a part, thus allowing the person to schedule maintenance or replacement prior to failure.
In a simple case, a person can visually compare thermal images captured at different times to determine changes in thermal characteristics over the time period. However, only so much information can be gleaned solely from thermal images. To aid in the analysis of a most recent image captured or in comparing that image to images previously captured, infrared imaging cameras have been configured to allow operators to add notes or annotations to an image. These annotations are generally created as audio or text files, and can be subsequently saved to the image in order to provide supplementary information that is difficult to ascertain from the image alone.
However, issues were encountered in adding these annotations to the image. In particular, some cameras only enable annotations to be added at the time the thermal image is saved (with limited ability for later modification), while other cameras enable annotations to be added after the image is saved. As such, it is not uncommon to find operators of these cameras further carrying a notebook to jot down their impressions of the scene in the field. In turn, the operator waits until later to combine these impressions into a single file which can then be stored with the saved image of the scene. Unfortunately, this process is time-consuming and invites error, because what is observed and noted in the field may not be fully recalled, even with the use of such notebook. Further, the operator may not be able to remember the particular image that the annotations correspond to, inviting further potential error.
Many of the above and other problems are solved by embodiments of an apparatus and methods shown in U.S. Pat. No. 9,176,990, assigned to the assignee of this patent and hereby incorporated by reference. The '990 patent shows a thermal imager for capturing a primary thermal image of an asset or scene and then associating it, as desired, with auxiliary information relating to the asset or scene. The auxiliary information can be associated with the primary thermal image in the field after the image is captured. The auxiliary information can pertain to further detail regarding the asset, the surroundings of the scene, and/or the surroundings of the location of the scene, which when associated with the primary thermal image, collectively represents a form of asset information card for the image. The auxiliary information is generally in the form of images and video recordings, whether infrared and/or visible light, and can be associated to the primary thermal image in varying or distinct manners, such as being based on relatedness of the information to the asset or the scene. The infrared image is annotated with the other images and recordings in the thermal imager at or proximate the time of recording.
The infrared imager of the '990 patent has the added ability to capture still images, sound recordings, and video, and thereby annotate the infrared images by capturing the infrared images and the annotations at approximately the same time. However, many users continue to use their existing infrared imagers that have no ability to capture still and video images and sound recordings. As such, there remains a problem with annotating thermal images with other images and recordings taken by video camera, still image cameras, and sound recorders. Moreover, often the infrared images reside on a remote server and only require annotations with images and recording that can be captured by non-infrared equipment such as the ubiquitous smartphone which records video, audio, and still images. There remains a long felt and unmet need for such annotating infrared images with auxiliary information captured by non-infrared devices.